


Into the Woods

by Lunamionny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst and Feels, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Smut, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunamionny/pseuds/Lunamionny
Summary: The villagers of Hogsmeade have lived in fear of the wolf for two generations. When Hermione delivers a mysterious package to the dragon tamer who lives in a secluded hut in the woods, it sets off a chain of events that changes her life, and those of the villagers, forever.Charlie looked at her quietly for several moments. "I'm sorry," he said eventually.But Hermione did not want, or need, his pity. For since her sister's death a desire for vengeance, quiet as a spider, had spun its web in the shadowy places of her heart."I'm going to kill it," she stated with cold, quiet conviction, raising her eyes and meeting Charlie's, her face hard and determined. "One day, I will take it's life as it took my sister's."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [TheFairestOfTheRare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFairestOfTheRare/pseuds/TheFairestOfTheRare) in the [BTSS2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/BTSS2019) collection. 



> This fic was written for Fairest of the Rare's 'Before the Spring Snaps' 2019 fest. The fest theme was Disney and my prompt was 'Big bad wolf - Into the Woods'.  
> Huge thanks to Frumpologist and MidnightChardonnay, the admins of the group, for making this fest happen!  
> This is unbeta-ed so forgive me any SPAG errors please! I'm more than happy for errors to be pointed out.

 

The villagers called it 'big' and they called it 'bad'. Some called it ‘the beast’, others ‘the monster’, some the more long-winded ‘creature of the full moon', others simply ‘the wolf’.

Hermione Granger never called it any of those things.

Hermione called it The Butcher.

* * *

The village of Hogsmeade sat nestled between mountains to the north, farmlands to the east and a deep, dark wood to the west. And, if one took the less well-trodden path to the south, they would eventually find themselves at the wrought-iron gates of Hogwarts Castle. Although people rarely took this path, for reasons we will come to understand.

One hot, mid-summers day, Hermione had set out to visit her Granny Minnie. Minerva McGonagall wasn’t Hermione’s real Granny, of course, but she was as good as. She had been there when Hermione had been born, had cradled an infant Hermione to her chest, seeing her through illnesses by conjuring magical healing spells her no-magic parents could not perform, and had taught Hermione everything she knew, aside from that which her parents had passed on.

Granny Minnie lived a good league into the woods, beyond the dragon tamer's hut, just on the boundary of the Forbidden Forest. The border between the woods and forest was protected by wards the villagers had conjured many years ago, to attempt to protect them from the bloodlust of the Butcher, for it was suspected that it lived in the shadows of the forest.

Despite the sweltering heat, Hermione had still chosen to wear her red riding cloak. Granny Minnie had gifted her the cloak for Christmas of her eleventh year, explaining that it was enchanted with spells which meant she was protected from danger whenever she wore it. Indeed, Hermione could sense the magic rippling through the cloaks seams each time she donned it. It was what made her feel confident enough to venture so near the forest boundaries.

"Hermione! Little Red!" Hermione turned at the sound of her nickname. The villagers had coined the nickname 'Little Red Riding Hood' when Hermione had started to wear the cloak which, over the years, had been abbreviated to 'Little Red'. Ginny Weasley was running down the lane towards her.

"Are you going to visit Minerva?" Ginny asked once she'd caught up with Hermione. "Do you think you could stop by Charlie's and give him this?" Ginny held out a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, taking the package and putting it in her basket. It was the size of a book although felt a little heavier. This intrigued Hermione because she loved books but they were scarce in the village. Her favourite day of the month was market day, when she would go with her father to the nearest town, where Sheriff Dumbledore resided, and the aged wizard let her pick books to borrow from his small library.

"I - I can't - I don't know," Ginny stuttered, her apparent awkwardness increasing Hermione's curiosity about the packages contents. "But don't open it, or give it to anyone else - you must deliver it to Charlie yourself. My mother asked for me to do it but I won't have time.”

Ginny and Hermione said their farewells and Hermione went on her way. By the time she'd reached the dragon tamer's hut, Hermione was sweltering. Her cheeks were burning with heat and sweat dripped down her back. She hesitated before knocking on the door, for she had not seen Charlie Weasley for many years. He had gone away when he was seventeen to be trained and had only returned six months ago. He would be twenty-four now. Hermione had been ten when he'd departed, and only vaguely remembered him. Hermione knocked on the door of the ramshackle, seemingly lopsided hut.

After a moment, the door swung open and a tall, broad, bare-chested man stood there, taking up nearly all of the doorframe. He looked Hermione up and down, unsure for a moment and then his face transformed into a wide, wolfish grin of recognition, his eyes twinkling in the sunlight.

"Hey, Little Red," he greeted warmly.

And for a moment, Hermione found it hard to talk. It was as if butterflies were fluttering their wings deep within her stomach at the sound of her nickname on his tongue. And then there was his skin.

Hermione was used to seeing men’s bare chests. On hot summer days throughout the village, when wood needed to chopped and fields to be ploughed, decorum had to be done away with in order to keep cool.

But this. This was different.

For nearly every inch of Charlie's exposed skin was marked. Marked with burns and scars and ink. A black picture of a dragon was pierced into his upper left chest, near his shoulder, and another on the right side of his stomach, the tail of it disappearing out of sight under his trousers. And nearly everywhere else there was the red and white of a burn or a scar. Hermione had a desire to know the story behind every one of the marks, which didn’t surprise her - she’d always been curious. But what was less familiar was the yearning she felt to run her fingers over each welt and ridge, along the hard edges of him...to maybe lick over the perimeter of the inked dragons...and to know how he would react if she did so -

"Hermione, are you okay?" Hermione abruptly pulled her eyes away from Charlie's chest, realising she'd been staring at it for quite some time.

"Yes - sorry," she tried not to sound too flustered. "Your mother asked Ginny - who asked me - to give you this." She held out the package to him.

Charlie looked at it and something unrecognisable flickered in his eyes, his brow furrowing briefly. He took the package hastily, "Thank you," he said, then appeared to study her for a moment. "You look boiling. Come in for a bit. Have a drink to cool you down. I've just pressed some apples."

The thought of cool apple juice was beyond tempting, so Hermione accepted and followed Charlie into his hut. She took off her cloak because she instinctively felt safe in Charlie's dwelling and she thought she may pass out with the heat if she didn't.

She was wearing a plain cotton summer dress underneath and realised that sweat had made it stick to her in the most awkward of places. As Charlie eyed her taking off her cloak, she suddenly felt very aware of her body - of the shapes and curves of it - in ways she never had before.

"Why are you wearing such a garment on a day like today?" Charlie asked as he placed the package down on the side and started to pull tankards down from a shelf.

"It has magical protection," Hermione explained simply.

Charlie looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded imperceptibly. "That's important, in these woods."

There was a pause as Hermione tried to subtly wipe her face with a cloth she'd found in her pocket.  Gosh, she must look a fright. Then Charlie spoke again. "The beast - it hasn't killed since I was last in the village?"

"No. The last time the Butcher attacked was when it assailed your brother." Seven years previously, only weeks before Charlie had departed the village, the wolf had attacked Bill Weasley. Fortunately, Bill had survived with only some gashes to his face. He hadn't died and he hadn't been turned. Charlie had paused in his drink preparations and was eyeing her thoughtfully.

"Why do you call it the Butcher, Hermione?" he asked gently.

Hermione chose her words carefully, because explaining this still caused her some upset. For six months before the Butcher had attacked Bill, it had slain her younger sister, Allegra, when she was just seven years old.

"When they brought Allegra's body back, and laid it on the ground outside our cottage, my mother didn't want me to see it, but I insisted," Hermione explained quietly, looking at the floor, at a loose thread on Charlie's rug. "And I remember thinking when I saw it: that's not Allegra. At least, it didn't look like  her. Because her skin was ripped back from her bones, one of her eyes had been gouged out, her left side was a mass of tissue and blood. It all made her quite unrecognisable. And it reminded me of the carcasses of animals I'd seen hanging in the butchers. So I've called it the Butcher ever since. Because of the way it butchered her body."

Charlie looked at her quietly for several moments. "I'm sorry," he said eventually.

But Hermione did not want, or need, his pity. For since her sister's death a desire for vengeance, quiet as a spider, had spun its web in the shadowy places of her heart.

"I'm going to kill it," she stated with cold, quiet conviction, raising her eyes and meeting Charlie's, her face hard and determined. "One day, I will take it's life as it took my sister's."

Usually, when she made this claim to the villagers, they laughed her off - Little Red Riding Hood, thinking she could slay the werewolf! The villagers had lived in fear of the monster for two generations, after all. But Charlie did not laugh at her. Something flickered across his features again - something like wariness - as he continued to hold her gaze, his face serious.

He reached out a hand and brushed a stray curl back from her face. Hermione's breath caught as she felt his fingers against her cheek, her skin tingling where he'd touched it.

"Little Red," he said, his face soft but grave. "Not so little anymore..."

Hermione took her drink and went to sit in one of the chairs by the hearth.

"Why did you decide to live here Charlie? Won't you get lonely?" she asked, in an attempt to change the subject.

"Well, the caves and quarries nearby are perfect for the dragons, you see."

"But it's only a quarter of a league from the village. You could live there and walk in each day?"

Charlie smiled ruefully. "This quiet solitude is best for me....this way I get to escape the village drama...and the gossip. And I have visitors to stave off the loneliness. You'll come and visit me again, won't you Little Red?"

"Oh yes, certainly," Hermione replied, because she thought she'd like that very much.

* * *

On her way back to the village that day, Hermione was forced off the path by a group of five horseman that came cantering down the lane at the meeting of the woods' path and the lane to Hogwarts Castle.

As they galloped past Hermione, she heard a man on a white horse let out a bellowing cry and the whole party came to a precarious halt fifty yards or so from where Hermione was standing. As she looked, the white steed rider turned his horse, cantered back to her and dismounted gracefully.

The man's dark hair fell in a wave over his forehead and his eyes were such a dark brown they were almost black. Hermione supposed that some may have said he was handsome, but his eyes wandered up and down Hermione's body in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable.

"Forgive us," the man said. "I fear the liveliness of our party may have thrown you from the path." Insincerity wove through the man's words, making Hermione instantly wary.

"I grant you my forgiveness, sir. Now, I must be on my way," Hermione said hurriedly, and turned to go.

"Why such haste, Miss...?"

Hermione stopped, for it would have been far too rude not to, and turned back to face the stranger. "Miss Granger. Hermione Granger."

The man smiled. "Miss Granger," His eyes danced around her figure again, as if appraising her. His scrutinising gaze was beginning to irritate her. "You have quite a wild mane," he commented, eyeing her hair as if he were evaluating a prize mare.

"I am not a horse!" Hermione could not help but reply indignantly. Then instantly regretted it because he did not seem the kind of man it would be sensible to anger.

To her surprise, the stranger chuckled. "Sharp-tongued too..." He advanced slowly towards her, causing Hermione to  take a step backwards, only to find her back coming up against the hedge that lined the path. "Maybe not a horse, but a wild one nonetheless...what would it take to tame you, I wonder?" he asked quietly.

He leaned towards her, inches from her face, causing Hermione to flinch back instinctively. The thought of the man touching her made her stomach churn. She did not respond to him; it had seemed a rhetorical kind of question. He stared at her for some moments longer, a half smile playing on his face, as if the effect he had on her amused him. Then he abruptly pulled back, walked towards his horse and mounted it elegantly.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Granger," he called down to her. "But I didn't introduce myself, did I? How rude of me - I am Lord Riddle...but if you're a good girl, I may allow you to call me Tom."

And he gave her another sickening grin before turning his horse and riding away.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione stood, looking after the group of retreating horseman, her heart beating so fast in her chest she thought it might burst. Lord Riddle. She had heard much about the man but had never seen him. Indeed, people had rarely seen him since he was rumoured to have killed her friend Harry's parents when Harry had been just a baby, leaving him with a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead.

Riddle's wealth, small army of soldiers, ruthlessness and love of Dark Magic meant the villagers lived in fear of his wrath and whims. If it wasn't for Sheriff Dumbledore, the only person Lord Riddle was afraid off, the whole village would be in his power.

* * *

The long summer days wore on. As the grass turned brown and brittle in the fields and the earth dried and cracked under a relentless sun, Hermione continued to visit Charlie. Sporadically and infrequently at first, but then more regularly, with the two settling into a comfortable rhythm.

They would sit outside in the shade of the trees, and Charlie would tell Hermione of the foreign lands he had visited during his training, whilst she listened, enraptured and envious. She, in turn, told him of the world of ideas she had learnt in books, he listening with curiosity and admiration of her knowledge and bright wit. They often laughed, and Hermione grew to love Charlie's playfulness and the sparkle of his eyes, which was very much like the sun twinkling off the Great Lake, she noted, thinking that it would not be such a bad thing to drown in them.

One day, Charlie showed Hermione his dragons. She stood, several feet back from the quarry's edge, wary and in awe, the feel of the power of the creatures as real as the heat of their fiery breath on her skin.

"They can sense your fear, Little Red. Be bolder," Charlie encouraged gently. And Hermione, gaining strength from his words, his presence and the cloak on her back, stepped forward.

* * *

Some months later, when the days had finally become cooler and the nights longer, Hermione went to call on Charlie as usual. As he answered the door, she noticed an unease in his posture, and an unusual pursing of his lips. He turned from the door to let her into his hut and she gasped out loud in surprise. For a large patch of Charlie's upper back was red raw, with the skin burnt away revealing the tissue underneath and even a pink-whiteness of bone at his shoulder blade.

"Merlin, Charlie! What happened?" Hermione exclaimed.

"Blackclaw got me unawares just as I was leaving her cave. Think she might be with-child, so a little temperamental at present," Charlie said, wincing as he sat down. He  gestured to an assortment of healing balms and cloths on the table. "I’ve been trying to treat it myself but it's hard to reach."

"Then I’ll do it," Hermione said matter-of-factly. Charlie looked at her, uncertain.  " I touch men plenty of times when I’m healing. This will be no different. You should have come to us anyway."

Hermione had learnt no-magic healing from her parents and was apprenticed to Madam Pomfrey, the villages magical healer. For these were the days when magical kind lived peacefully beside no-magics, the days before the latter became fearful of sorcery, before the trials and the burnings and the drownings. Before magical kind had to scurry into a shadow world and a Statute of Secrecy had to be drawn up to protect those on both sides of the divide.

Charlie eventually gave a short nod of agreement and they both sat on the chairs by the table, so that Charlie’s back was accessible to Hermione. She picked up the soothing salve and started applying it tentatively to Charlie's burn. She sensed his shoulders relax and heard him let out a few deep breaths. He was then still as she applied the antiseptic balm and the skin replenishing relief. She could feel the heat radiating off him. He was unusually hot, but maybe that was the result of the burns he’d suffered, Hermione thought.

When she’d finally finished applying the dressing, they both sat still for a few moments. It was the closest Hermione had got to Charlie and she didn’t want the proximity to end, not just yet. Hermione took the chance to examine the rest of his back. Like his chest, it was marked by singes and scratches. She ran her fingers over a particularly prominent line of scar tissue that ran diagonally up his lower back. He flinched slightly as she did so, but otherwise did not object, either with words or actions.

He had another tattoo of a dragon on his right shoulder blade. Hermione touched it lightly and to her surprise, the dragon moved, lifting its head. "Oh!" she exclaimed.

"They sense touch and move when the nerves are pleasured," Charlie said quietly, his voice hoarse. "An old  gypsy woman did that one, in Romania. Where my skin is inked, the feeling is especially sensitive and particularly...pleasurable." 

Hermione didn’t answer. Instead, she found herself leaning forward and pressing her lips to the dragon in a firm kiss. She watched entranced as it let out a tiny ball of black fire and heard Charlie inhale sharply. Amused, she flicked her tongue over the dragon's back, noticing it spread its wings as a result and move as if flying. At the same time, she heard Charlie let out a stifled moan. 

Hermione felt her own body flood with heat as she saw and heard the effect her touch and tongue had on him. She instinctively splayed her fingers, wanting to feel as much of him as possible, and slid her hand round to his front. She licked, and kissed, and nipped at his back where his skin was untouched, as her fingers gently traced up his chest, hearing his breathing become rapid and uneven.

Her eyes gilded around all of him that she could see, indulging in this time she had to take him in - the copper shades of his hair, the freckles peppering the nape of his neck. Then she saw four small, evenly spaced gashes on the left of his neck. Hermione has treated many bite marks during her healer training, and these gashes looked very much like one, but not one which Hermione had ever seen before.

She reached out, running her fingers over the marks and asked softly, "What’s this from?" 

She felt Charlie instantly tense. "It’s nothing. Just an animal, many years ago." Charlie stood up and hastily started to clear up the healing solutions on the table, the warm intimacy of just a moment ago broken.

Hermione sat back as if she'd been stung, confused by the sudden change in mood.

"You should go, it will get dark soon," Charlie said gruffly.

And, worried that she had somehow offended him and chiding herself for letting her curiosity get the better of her again, Hermione had no choice but to quietly slip through his door. 

* * *

As Hermione reached her home that day, her stomach clenched as she saw a beautiful white horse tied up by her gate. When she walked into her kitchen, Hermione saw Lord Riddle sitting at the table with her parents. Her father stood up abruptly as she entered, his chair scraping loudly across the floor. He gave Hermione a tense smile, wringing his hands together anxiously as her mother and Riddle stood up behind him, albeit more slowly.

"Hermione. We have a visitor," her father said, somewhat unnecessarily. Hermione could hear the strained warning in his voice: Be polite. Do not be rash.

"Lord Riddle would like to take tea with you," her mother informed, and only Hermione heard the question in her statement: Why you? Why us? Hermione could not have answered her even if it would have been appropriate to.

Riddle smiled insincerely, making no effort to dissipate her parents’ obvious discomfort.

"Why don’t we take a seat by the fire, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, yes, of course," her father responded, and Hermione hated the placating tone in his voice. How dare Riddle come in here and make her father scared in his own home?

Hermione and Riddle sat on opposite seats by the hearth. After her mother had handed them both cups of tea, her parents retreated to the kitchen, but Hermione could see they stayed within eye-line and kept giving her furtive glances throughout their conversation.

Riddle questioned her about her interests and life. Hermione responded in curt, brusque sentences.

"Your parents tell me you like books, Hermione?" Riddle asked after their awkward conversation had been going on for about thirty minutes.

"Yes."

"What do you like you read?"

"Anything. I read anything." To Hermione annoyance, Riddle seemed totally unfazed by her coldness.

"Do you like fairy tales?"

"I like the imagination of fairy tales but…" and despite herself, Hermione couldn’t help but extrapolate, not when it came to the subject of books. "The heroine is always so innocent and naïve, and she always has to get saved by a handsome man - usually of high status and wealth - and the ending is always such that she marries him. I can’t help thinking they’re somewhat.…unrealistic."

"But isn't that what all girls wish for? To find a man to look after them, preferably of high status and wealth?"

"Not me. I’d much prefer a world in which women had the means to look after themselves. And to be with someone for love, if they were to find such a person."

Riddle narrowed his eyes at her and said, as if speaking to himself, "Such an odd little witch…you really are quite fascinating...so what  _ would _ you wish for, if had one wish?"

Hermione didn’t have to think long about her answer. "For knowledge. To learn. To have access to so many books it would be impossible to read them all in a lifetime."

"I have an extensive library at Hogwarts. It is at least six times the size of Sheriff Dumbledore's."

Hermione was unsettled by the fact that Riddle knew she borrowed from Dumbledore's library and  at the same time enthralled by the thought of the Hogwarts book collection.

"And what would you wish for?" Hermione asked boldly, in an effort to change the subject.

Riddle studied. "Power," he said after a moment, his voice as soft as silk. "Power over all things  and all people...but especially death."

And Hermione was unable to speak for several moments, because at Riddle's words, a chill travelled  through her veins, so cold she thought her blood might turn to ice.

 


	3. Chapter 3

As the leaves turned an array of reds and browns and began to litter the woods' paths, Charlie took Hermione to see the dragons again. The awkwardness with which Hermione had departed the time she helped treat his burns had long since disappeared, although there remained a volatility in the air between them, which they both seemed to be dancing around, lest it set off something uncontrollable in them.

"Ever ridden a dragon Hermione?" Charlie asked as he coaxed a dragon named Whirlwings closer to them.

"I - I’m not the best flier," Hermione replied hesitantly.

"You’ll be fine if you hold on tight."

"To what?" Hermione looked doubtfully at the smooth scales and saddle-less back of Whirlwings.

"To me," and Charlie grabbed her around the waist and lifted her onto the dragon's back in one swift, easy movement.

"Charlie - I really don’t think -" Hermione protested as Charlie heaved himself onto the dragons back too, sitting in front of her.

"Hold on Little Red!"  and suddenly Whirlwings launched itself into the air, Hermione initially sliding precariously until she reached out her arms and clasped them tightly around Charlie's waist.

The ground rapidly fell further away from them and air assaulted Hermione’s face, tearing at the skin of her cheeks. The dragon dipped unexpectedly and Hermione's stomach was in her throat. She clung more tightly to Charlie's waist, loving the feel of  it, hard and reassuring and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. The scent of Charlie - of warm earth and something more subtle like the sweetness of summer fruits - calmed her, and she actually found herself starting to enjoy the ride.

When they landed, her heart was beating so fast and she felt on such a high, she found herself laughing at nothing in particular, as Charlie held out his hand, helping her down from Whirlwings.

Hermione later blamed the feel-good rush from the ride, as well of the sight of Charlie in that moment - all broad grin and sea-blue eyes - for what she did next. She learnt towards him and pressed her lips firmly onto his.

She had only kissed one boy before, Ron, in the village stables a couple of years ago. She had felt nothing then and had been left wondering what all the fuss was about. But this was so different. As their tongues massaged against each other, Hermione felt her muscles loosen whilst other seems to tighten. Heat flooded her core and she moaned into his mouth as his hand caressed the nape of her neck. The sensations were unfamiliar but felt totally right and so very, very good...

* * *

"Why do you keep this hat, Granny Minnie?" Hermione asked, holding up a brown, tatty pointed hat with a wide rip in its brim. It was a few weeks after her first dragon ride, during one of Hermione’s visits to her Gran.

"Oh, that is one of the most magical objects I own, be careful with it now," Granny Minnie replied, taking the hat gently from Hermione and placing it back on the shelf.

"What magic does it possess?" Heroine enquired, curious as ever.

"Well, when someone deserving is most in need, they will pull from that hat an object that will be of most use to them at the time."

"So, if someone were in need of knowledge, they may pull a book?" Hermione asked hopefully.

Granny Minne smiled plaintively. "By 'in need' in this context, we mean in _dire_ need - possibly on the verge of facing death."

"Oh."

"You better get on your way...there is a snow storm coming and I would hate for you to get caught in it."

The weather had, indeed, become colder now and two weeks earlier they'd had the first snowfall of winter. Hermione said her goodbyes to her Gran, wrapped her red cloak tight around her and left, her head bent against the icy burn of the winter wind.

But by the time she had reached Charlie's hut, the snow had been falling thick and fast for quite some time, and despite her warming charms, Hermione was wet through. She was starting to find it hard to see through the thick blizzard, and the snow had settled so thickly on the ground that she could not see the path. Thinking that it would be dangerous to continue, she knocked on Charlie's door.

"The storm," she explained once he'd let her in. "I feared it would be reckless to continue in it."

"Of course," Charlie agreed. "You look frozen. You need to get out of those clothes.”

Charlie gave Hermione one of his smocks to wear whilst her clothes dried on the hearth. They agreed that she should stay the night; the storm was raging on with no signs of abating.

"You shall take my bed. I'll be more than comfortable in the armchair," Charlie insisted.

And so it was that, as night fell, Hermione found herself curled up in Charlie's bed on the first floor of his hut. She drifted to sleep easily, but awoke in the very early hours of the next day, shivering with cold, her feet like blocks of ice. After several minutes of indecision, she decided to leave the bed in search of more blankets.

As she tiptoed down the stairs and shuffled about the living space, looking for some kind of bedcover, Charlie abruptly awoke, jumping to his feet and brandishing his wand in front of him. Hermione froze.

"It's just me Charlie - I'm sorry to have woken you."

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"I- I was just a bit cold, I wondered if you had another blanket..." Hermione attempted to explain, not wishing to imply that she didn't appreciate his hospitality.

Charlie frowned, looking at her with concern.

"I'm sorry, I'm out of wood, or I would have lit the fire. I don't feel the cold, you see," He looked about him helplessly. "I don't have any more blankets but..."

Hermione had involuntarily started shivering. Charlie's frown deepened.

"It wouldn't be proper, but in the circumstances, I could share the bed with you - my body heat would warm it."

"Yes. Yes, that would be fine," Hermione said, for all she could think about was regaining the feeling in her extremities and reducing the biting cold she felt in the rest of her body.

So they both crawled into Charlie's bed, self-consciously lying inches from each other. Hermione eventually started to feel the heat of him and craved more of it. But it wouldn't have been right to reach out to him, to draw him and his warmth to her, so she resisted. She turned on her side so her back was to Charlie and her body continued to shake uncontrollably, her teeth even beginning to chatter.

Then she heard Charlie let out a huff of impatience and felt him abruptly move towards her, pushing his chest to her back and wrapping his arms around her waist, his head settling just above hers. She instantly felt encased in the warmth of him, like a delightful, cosy, safe cocoon. Her muscles, which had been tense with cold, instantly relaxed as Charlie's heat seeped through her, through her skin and tissue and bone, warming her to her very core. A little while later, she was fast asleep.

* * *

Hermione awoke as the blue light of dawn seeped through the thin curtains of Charlie's bedroom, in much the same position, with her back to Charlie's front, his left arm draped across her stomach, the weight of it heavy and comforting, and his breath tickling the back of her neck.

She listened to the deep, regular sound of his breathing, and looked down at the muscles of his arm as it rested over her. She instinctively traced her finger along his hand and up the contours of his forearm. Charlie's breathing suddenly became shallower and she sensed that he had awoken. His arm shifted slightly but he didn't withdraw it and they continued to lie quietly together, as the pale morning light slowly chased their sleep away.

Hermione leisurely played with Charlie's hand in hers, inter-linking their fingers, then placing her hand palm-to palm against his, liking how small her hand was compared to his, the feel of his rough skin against her smooth, whilst he let her manipulate him, yielding to her gentle pushes and pulls.

Without really realising what she was doing, but acting on a primal instinct she pulled his hand towards her mouth and flicked her tongue against the tip of his index finger. She had an urge to taste him further and so wrapped her lips around it and nipped it gently with her teeth. She heard Charlie inhale sharply as she did so, then let out a stifled moan as he moved his body, pressing himself against her.

Hermione felt his teeth graze the back of her neck which caused her to let out a quiet keening noise she didn't know she could make. But what really made her breath quicken was the feel of him growing harder against her lower back. Wetness flooded between her legs at the feel of it and she found herself moving her hips in short rhythmic movement against him. She felt him harden even more and she loved that it was her doing that to him.

At the urge to feel something - anything - between her legs, she turned her body towards him, so she was lying on her back. Charlie was bare-chested and Hermione noticed that his inked dragons were in uproar: relentlessly puffing out black balls of fire and moving their wings feverishly.

Their eyes locked momentarily, his hard and hungry, before their lips crashed together in an urgent kiss. Their tongues tangled, as Hermione stroked her hand down Charlie's body and she felt Charlie's own travel over her waist, stopping tortuously close to the top of her thigh. She needed - desperately wanted - to be touched - there.

She wondered whether this was normal, this desperate longing, this urgent need? This wetness, this heat, the yearning to be touched, for some kind of release. She understood now how girls became with-child out of wedlock, if this was the temptation they faced.

"Charlie - please." She wasn't sure what she was pleading for - for him not to stop, for his touch - and she found her hand gliding in-between him and her own body, pressing against his hardness.

Charlie nuzzled his face in her neck and inhaled deeply. "You smell so good, you know that?" he murmured almost inaudibly into her skin.

Then he let out a low growl, as if in frustration, quickly rolled away from her, and rose to sit on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

Had she done something wrong?

"This - this isn't right. This can't be," Charlie said reluctantly.

"What - what do you mean?"

"I'll go and make us some breakfast," Charlie said softly, regret marring the edge of his voice. "Your clothes should be dry, and the storm looks like it's finally died. There's nothing to stop you being on your way."

He stood and left the room and in his absence Hermione felt the cold of the bed more than ever before.

* * *

For the whole duration of her journey back to the village, Hermione's thoughts whirled with memories of the morning, and with the strange halt to her and Charlie's intimacy. Hermione could have taken it as a rejection, but Charlie's behaviour over breakfast had been as warm and playful as ever, as if nothing had happened.

Those thoughts were ripped from her mind at the sight of Harry and Ginny running fast towards her down the main street, shouting urgently, looks of torment on their faces.

"Your father-"

"And mother -"

"In the village square, we couldn't stop it, his men were too powerful, we tried but -" Harry gestured to his bloodied and bruised face.

“Lord Riddle!” Ginny tried to explain. “He’s got your parents!”

Hermione bolted. She ran so fast to the village green she could barely hear her friends garbled explanations: something about Lord Riddle coming to her house, something about her parents being dragged out to the stocks in the middle of the village.

A group of villagers huddled on the green, obscuring the views of the actual stocks, although she could see Riddle sitting high and proud on his horse with two of his soldiers behind him. Hermione pushed her way to the front of the crowd and her heart nearly stopped as she saw her mother in the stocks and Crabbe and Goyle throwing rotten vegetables at her face, the standard punishment of humiliation in the village.

Before she knew it, she was sweeping her wand through the air at the two boys who were knocked clean off their feet and flew several feet back in the air, landing with a thud on their backs.

Then Hermione caught sight of her father and she let out a wretched cry of protest. For her father was imprisoned in the stocks too and as Hermione watched in horror, one of Riddle's soldiers lifted a whip high above his head and brought it down hard onto her father's back. Hermione saw blood running like rivers down her father's back from the bright red gouges the whip had already left in his skin.

Hermione welcomed the rage that flooded her.

"No!" she bellowed. "Impedimenta!"

The flogger was flown backwards, landing several feet away.

"Let him out!" She shouted up at Riddle, who looked down at her dispassionately. "How dare you! Why are you doing this!?"

"Miss Granger, please compose yourself. You see, you mother was somewhat rude and you father somewhat obstinate. I really had no choice but to punish them."

"What? What did they do?!" Hermione demanded.

"Your father refused me your hand in marriage."

Hermione froze. It was as if ice had flooded her veins and her stomach had dropped somewhere between her feet.

"What?" she said tightly, fury seething beneath her skin.

"I asked, very politely if I say so myself, for your hand in marriage, and your father - well, he did not even refuse me, he said something ridiculous about it being _your_ choice whether you wed me or not!" Riddle finished this statement with a shrill, insincere laugh, looking around at the villagers, as if expecting them to find the story as hilarious as he did. He was met with a stony silence, as the crowd stared back, apprehensive and afraid.

"So," Riddle continued with deathly calm. "Miss Granger, you will of course take my hand? I wish us to be wed."

"No!" Hermione cried instinctively. "No - I would rather - I will never marry you!"

Riddle's eyes flickered darkly, his lips twitched. "Very well. Expelliarmus!"

Hermione's wand was wrenched from her hand and flew across the air to Riddle, who caught it neatly, whilst one of his soldiers came forward and held her arms behind her in a vice-like grip.

Riddle nodded to the flogger, who had managed to stand back up since Hermione had impedimenta'ed him.

"Continue, Macnair," Riddle commanded coldly.

Macnair brought the whip down onto her father's back again. Blood sprayed into the air as he wielded the whip a second time, then a third and fourth, striking her father again and again, criss-crossing his back with red and bloodied lines, as it began to look like nothing but ripped and torn skin. Hermione tried to wrestle free, and Harry and Ginny came forward, and Luna and Neville, as well as  other villagers to try and stop it, but Riddle's magic and his soldier's strength overpowered all of them.

Eventually, her father's head lolled limply forward as he succumbed to unconscious.

"We will have to start on the mother next," Riddle commented indifferently.

But that was too much for Hermione. "Stop! Please stop! I'll marry you!" she cried.

Riddle gestured to Macnair, who lowered his whip.

"Pardon, Miss Granger?"

Hermione was not able to stop the short, hard sob wrench itself from her mouth as she said bitterly, "I'll marry you, Lord Riddle. You have my hand."

Riddle's lip curled slowly into a cold, satisfied smile that chilled Hermione to her core, and she thought longingly of Charlie, of his warm body and soft touch.

"You can have me Lord Riddle," she declared. "But I'll never be yours! Not truly! You'll never have my _heart_!"

Riddle's smile faded and eyes darkened. As he hurriedly dismounted his horse and strode towards her, Hermione started to regret her words. Riddle brandished his wand towards her, the tip of it very near her left temple. Hermione recognised the inflection of the spell, but it was too late to put up a resistance to it.

"Legilimens," Riddle murmured and Hermione felt a jolt of pain travel through her temple, through her skull and settle in the base of her brain. She felt an icy fluttering as Riddle invaded her mind and sifted through her memories. She sensed him pause at the ones of Charlie and repeat them, almost exhausting the one from just hours earlier, which was still so fresh and raw. Finally, he lowered his wand and Hermione collapsed to her knees as her mind became her own again.

Riddle looked down at her contemptuously. "Yes, I see your affections lie with another...how inconvenient...we will see what can be done about that..."

Straddling his horse again, he gestured to his men to do the same.

"Come on!" he called to them. As they departed the green, he turned to Hermione one last time, smiled coldly and said, "We will be wed by the winter solstice!"

* * *

Hermione's first instinct was to run to Charlie, or if not him, Granny Minnie. But she had to see to her father; she could not leave her parents after what had happened to them. Then the storm returned that evening and continued for the next day, so it was not safe to venture into the woods.

The next night the storm had abated but the moon was full, a silver orb hovering ominously in the sky over the village. The tavern emptied and the streets were deserted long before the sun had set, as was the way with every full moon. She would go tomorrow, Hermione thought. Come rain or snow, she would go to Charlie tomorrow.

But Hermione awoke the next morning to alarmed shouts and anguished cries. She hurriedly dressed and ran out down the street in the direction of the yells. Her stomach turned as she finally made out the words of the cries and saw a body lying in the snow by the village well.

"The beast!"

"It's the wolf!"

"It's killed again!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue in this chapter is taken directly from the film 'Into the Woods' - see if you can spot it! :)

It was Lavender Brown's body lying in the snow, her eyes wide and lifeless, staring up into nothing. Her chestnut hair spiralled round her head like a halo and a river of liquid crimson flowed from a gash in her neck into the white snow. Hermione couldn't stop looking at it - the dark red on bright white.

The Butcher had, for some reason, carried Lavender's body to the village centre. It was not something it had done before, it normally took it's kill into the woods. It was as if it wanted the villagers to know - to have no doubt- that it had killed again.

And then there was a commotion as horseman came riding into the village and up to the crowd. Hermione looked, noticing warily that it was Lord Riddle and his men again.

"I have heard that the wolf has claimed another victim!" Riddle shouted from his horse, and some villagers replied in the affirmative.

"This must stop once and for all!" Lord Riddle exclaimed. "The days when this village lives in fear of the beast must end! I have knowledge of the werewolf's identity!"

Cries of disbelief and curiosity filled the air at Riddle's words.

"It lives in the woods...about a quarter of a league in. In its human form, it takes the guise of a dragon tamer! Indeed, it used to be a young man by the name of Charles Weasley-"

"No!" Hermione cried, and others echoed her protest, particularly Molly Weasley.

"I am going to his dwelling now, and all those who want to rid the village of this evil, I encourage to follow me!"

Riddle continued his rant, goading the growing mass into indignation and self-righteousness.

"No!" Hermione attempted to appeal to the villagers. "It doesn't make sense - the wolf has tormented this community for two generations - Charlie Weasley is only four and twenty!"

But her cries were drowned out by the mob as Riddle started to lead the crowd into the woods. Some had picked up burning torches, some bows and arrows and the magics amongst them brandished their wands, of course.

"At least let us get Sheriff Dumbledore. He can ensure this is dealt with fairly!" Harry objected, hurrying alongside Riddle's horse.

"It takes at least half a day to reach him, and we have wasted enough time!" Riddle retorted. 

And far too soon, Riddle's men were banging on the dragon tamer's door and dragging out a dumbfounded Charlie, forcing him to kneel in the snow as they bound his hands behind him and pointed a wand at his head. The villagers waited outside as Riddle's soldiers ransacked the hut. 

Riddle was handed a brown package by a soldier, much like the one Hermione had delivered to Charlie all those months earlier. In view of the crowd, Riddle ripped it open to reveal a ubiquitous looking brown leather book. But when he opened it, Hermione's heart leapt as she noticed that the pages had been cut out, leaving room for a small bottle inside. Riddle unscrewed its top and smelled the contents as the crowd fell quiet, watching him. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered the Revelio charm. A blue, ethereal image of a wolf jumped out the bottle before fading into nothing.

"Wolfsbane," Riddle concluded, to gasps from the crowd. "Apothecary Snape, has anyone been purchasing ingredients to make wolfsbane from you over a significant period of time?"

All eyes turned to Snape, who had followed the crowd into the woods, albeit less animatedly than most. His expression was stern, his eyes unreadable as he said, "Yes," he hesitated and Riddle raised his eyes, expectantly. "Molly Weasley."

The crowd gasped and shuffled again. Molly turned bright red as people looked to her accusingly. "My son is not a monster!" she protested.

Charlie met Hermione’s gaze then, his eyes pleading and tormented. He certainly didn't look like a predator. If anything, he looked like captured prey.

Riddle strode over to Charlie, gripped a fistful of his hair and violently pulled his head to one side, looking pointedly at his neck. "Madam Pomfrey, come here," he commanded. The crowd parted to let Pomfrey through. "Examine this bite mark. What kind of animal would have made this?"

Madam Pomfrey bent and looked carefully at Charlie's neck, at the four small marks Hermione had noticed the day she had treated Charlie's burns. After a moment, Pomfrey stood up straight, looking hesitantly at Riddle.

"Well? What is your opinion?" Riddle harangued.

"It - it looks like a wolf bite, sir," Pomfrey said regretfully.

"What kind of wolf?" Riddle insisted.

"The spacing and the shape...it looks like a werewolf bite, sir."

A ripple of mutterings went through the crowd and Riddle smiled in satisfaction as Pomfrey hurried back to the throng.

"The evidence is conclusive! The wolfsbane, which his mother had been brewing and sending to him for months, the bite mark, the fact there has been no attack in this village whilst this man was absent from it -  this man is the beast!"

"No!" Hermione cried again. For she knew the evidence was difficult to argue with but she couldn't believe that Charlie was the Butcher - she couldn't believe he had killed her sister, had killed Lavender. "At least let him speak!"

Riddle looked at her, and maybe because it was her, he conceded. He relinquished Charlie's hair with an abrupt shove. "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"

The dragon tamer looked defeated. "I am a werewolf," Again, people gasped and murmured and some cried out for Charlie's blood. "But I am not the beast! I am not the monster that has terrorised this village. That monster is the one that attacked my brother and I seven year ago. It bit me and turned me. Each month, when the moon is full, I take wolfsbane and go to a protective space in the woods, where I cannot harm another human. I am left with foxes and game to eat and the potion makes the beast in me passive and lethargic. I have never harmed another human!"

"A likely story!" Riddle cut him off, indicating to his men who hauled Charlie to his feet. "We shall take him to the castle and keep him in the dungeons until a trial can be held!"

The crowd roared, some in agreement, some in protest, and above it all, Hermione heard Charlie's cries, as he was forced onto the back of a horse. "Hermione! Little Red! I am not the Butcher! You must believe me! I'm not-"

But then Riddle cursed Charlie with a silencing spell and his words were trapped, and Hermione was only left with his anguished face and  beseeching eyes as the horses turned and cantered away.

"I believe you!" Hermione yelled after the retreating horseman. "And I'll come for you Charlie - I'll come for you!"

* * *

Hermione paced agitatedly up and down the Weasley's sitting room, where some of the villagers had gathered once they had arrived back from the woods. Bill and Percy had left to get Dumbledore, but Hermione did not know if she could bear waiting a day for them to return with him. She dreaded to think what Riddle could have done with Charlie in that time. By the afternoon, she'd had enough.

"I'm going to Granny Minnie's," she declared. She felt that Granny Minnie may well know what to do, maybe something none of the other villagers had thought of.

Shaking off the protests from her parents and others, and pulling her red cloak tight around her, Hermione stormed into the woods.

She was about halfway to her Gran's when a large animal jumped into her path. She let out a startled yelp of surprise before seeing the figure straightened up from a crouched position into the form of a human. A man. A tall, lean man with long, grey hair tied back from his face. He had a wand in his hand and Hermione saw him flick it imperceptibly, but he held it down by his side and it seemed harmless enough.

"Hello, little girl," the man leered. 

"Hello. Who - who are you?" Hermione asked cautiously, for it was unusual to come across strangers in these parts.

“ My name is Fenrir. Fenrir Greyback. And where, little girl, are you off to?" The man gave her a toothy grin which looked more like a grimace. 

There was really only one place she could be going, so she thought she may as well tell the truth.

"My Granny's house. I better be on my way, in fact, mother said continue 'straight ahead, not to delay or be misled.'"

"Would your Gran not like some flowers, Hermione?" 

How did the man know her name? She hadn't told it to him…had she? Hermione wasn't sure anymore, her recent memories seemed hazy, as if a fog had descended over her thoughts.

"There are some very special flowers growing just off the path here." The man gestured to his right. "The Flowers of Thought."

"Flowers of Thought?" Hermione asked, curious. 

"Yes. These flowers, if used in the right potions in the right way, will give the drinker knowledge they did not possess before...knowledge they could only possibly find in the rarest of books."

"Really?" Hermione was intrigued by these flowers and all she could learn from them.

"Really," Greyback confirmed. "Just off the path. So many paths, so many worth exploring, just one would be so boring…think of what you're ignoring."

The fog thickened over Hermione's mind, as if Greyback's words were sending her into a trance.

"Mother said not to stray, still I suppose a small delay...Granny might like a fresh bouquet…"

And Hermione found herself walking off the path, into a carpet of pretty purple-blue flowers. Something nudged persistently at the edge of her mind, wasn't she meant to be going somewhere? Somewhere urgently, for an important reason? Oh, well, if it was that important, she wouldn't have forgotten it, would she, Hermione reasoned to herself as she bent and started picking the flowers.

It must have been a good twenty minutes later when Hermione’s mind cleared and her thoughts reassembled themselves with a jolt of alarm that set her heart racing. Shocked, she remembered she was meant to be hurrying to Granny Minnie's, to see if she could help with freeing Charlie from Riddle.  With a cry of alarm, she started running towards Minerva's house. What had happened? Had the man confounded her in some way? But if so, why hadn't the cloak protected her? And why would he do such a thing?

Hermione burst through the door of her Granny's cottage to find the aged witch ill in bed.

"What's wrong, Granny Minnie?" she asked as she hastily placed her basket down and took off her cloak, aware her Gran was watching her keenly.

"Just a bad cold, my dear. I'm sure I'll feel better soon." Hermione went to Minerva's bedside and looked down at her. She instantly noticed something rather odd.

"Granny, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see you with," her Granny replied, and as she spoke, Hermione noticed something else unusual.

"Granny, what big teeth you have!"

"All the better to bite you with!" Minerva cried and leapt from her bed. Hermione shrieked, and bolted away from the bedside, getting as far away from the person - for Hermione was sure by now it wasn't her Gran - as possible and turned to face them, brandishing her wand.

Hermione watched in horror as the remainder of her Granny's features morphed and turned into the man from the woods: Fenrir Greyback.

"What have you done with my Gran!?" Hermione demanded.

"She's safe enough, didn't have time to do much with her - and I didn't fancy such tough meat..." Hermione heard a muffled cry coming from the wardrobe. This man had clearly locked her Granny in the closet.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Hermione was grateful that her voice remained steady.

"You, little girl. I've wanted you for years. Do you know how torturous it's been to smell your delightful, delicious scent every few days as it wafted towards me whilst I lay on the other side of those infuriating wards?"

"What - why -  _ you _ ?!" Hermione spluttered, as her thoughts shifted and recalibrated.

"Yes. I am the beast! The monster. Or the Butcher, as I think you call me? Although before me, it was my father, but he has passed on now. Every time you've visited the old hag Minerva, I've watched you from just over the border in the forest - smelt you - but I couldn't get to you. Until two days ago, when Riddle, with all his pomp and self-importance came to strike a bargain with me. He said he could let down the wards, and in return I was to kill one of the villagers -"

"You - you murdered Lavender?" Hatred boiled in Hermione's veins.

Greyback grinned sickeningly. "Of course I did. ‘Kill anyone but the Granger girl’, Riddle said. Which made me realise that the man has a strong affection for you. He wanted me -  the beast - to kill again to incentivise the villagers to oust that Weasley dragon tamer, such a poor excuse for my kind. Riddle wanted to be rid of him as he was competition for your affections, I understand? If you believed Weasley was the Butcher, it would kill all affections you ever had for him. At least that was Riddle’s reasoning.

"But the dissolution of the wards was not enough for me. I wanted to be one of Riddle’s soldiers - to ride alongside him on horseback. I'm sick of living like an outcast in the wild. And Riddle agreed. So straight after I took the Brown girl's life, I went to the castle and told him, expecting to be granted the title of soldier. But Riddle just laughed at me. He  _ laughed _ , saying he would never take a half-breed like me as one of his men.

"So I returned to the woods, furious, thinking how to exact my revenge. You see, to really hurt someone, you need to harm not  _ them _ , but what they hold dear. And it is clear that, for Riddle, that's you little girl. And by sinking my teeth into that delectable soft skin of yours, it means I can finally get what I've been craving all these years.

"But how to get to you, with that blasted cloak you wear? I knew you only took it off inside this old witch's cottage. So I accosted  you in the woods, a simple Confundus charm seemed to penetrate your cloaks protections because all my intent was for you to pick those flowers, something that in itself would not endanger you.  So I had time to get to your frail old Granny's. I had some poorly brewed Polyjuice Potion which clearly didn't work as well as I would have liked. But no matter now! I have you anyway...cloak-less and friendless. Stupify!"

"Protego!"

Hermione had been quick with her protective charm, and it shielded her, but she'd lost her balance as she'd cast it and teetered backwards precariously. It was all it took for Greyback to shout a disarming spell and her wand was pulled from her hand towards her assailant.

Then several things happened very fast. Greyback advanced on her, backing her into Minerva's shelves. He grabbed a fistful of Hermione's hair and yanked her head to the side as her hands grabbed blindly behind her on the shelves, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon.

Her hand came down on some rough cotton material - Granny Minnie's old hat - which was beyond useless, Hermione thought exasperatedly. But then she felt something cold and smooth and very solid, poking out of the hat. Her hand gripped hold of it as Greyback bared his teeth and leaned down towards her neck.

Hermione instinctively knew that what she grasped in her hand was a long, powerful sword, which she swung around with all her power behind it, piercing Greyback's side.

Greyback's eyes widened and he let out a strangled yelp of pain, his grip on her hair loosening. Hermione had to use quite a bit of strength to wrench the sword back out of Greyback, at the same time using her free hand to push him away from her. He staggered backward, looking at her with surprise and horror.

An image of her  sister's body, bloodied and butchered, flashed through Hermione’s mind and with it she felt a surge of vengeance and a strength she didn’t know she had, as she pointed the sword again, this time right at Greyback's chest - about the place his heart would be - and thrust it into him. After a moment, her breath coming in gasps and her heart pounding in her ears, she pulled the sword free of Greyback and watched as he fell to the floor as blood rapidly stained his shirt.

Splutters emitted from Greyback's mouth, as if he was trying to speak, until finally his body went still. Hermione looked down at the sword in her hand and idly noticed a sparkle of rubies embedded at its hilt before dropping it to the floor and hurrying to the wardrobe.

She pulled the gag off her Gran, unbound her tied hands and pulled her close. When she could see that her Granny was unharmed, Hermione allowed a sob to wrench itself from her body and tears to spill uninhibited from her eyes.  

"I killed someone, Granny. I killed a man," Hermione wept.  

"You didn't kill a man, child. You killed a monster," her Granny said soothingly, holding her tightly in her thin arms. And Hermione realised that, although she was shocked and distressed by what had just occurred, she wasn't sorry to have taken the life of the Butcher that had taken her sister's.

* * *

That evening the villagers, this time led by Dumbledore, advanced on Hogwarts Castle. Hermione had shown them her memories of Greyback's confession, which were supported by Minerva's testimony. It was enough for them to vindicate Charlie, condemn Riddle and decide to oust the Lord once and for all.

The battle between the villagers and Riddle's men was messy, with casualties on both sides. But the villagers had a sense of burning injustice on their side, which could be said to be one of the strongest weapons there is.

To Hermione's surprise, it was Harry that ended Riddle, in a powerful duel where one of Riddle's own curses seemed to rebound on him. His soldiers, those that had not been wounded or killed, fled. 

W hen she was sure that the battle had been won, Hermione ran to the dungeons. She found Charlie, his hair matted and skin streaked with dirt, his complexion sallow. As soon as she unlocked the cell and freed him from his chains, she cupped his head in her hands and pushed her lips to his. She explained all that had happened between kisses, mutual smiles and embraces.

"Charlie, I want to be with you" Hermione said when she finished her story, her blood running quick and warm from the battle and Charlie's touch. "Charlie, will you marry me? Will you take my hand?" She knew this was highly improper, for a woman to ask for a man's hand in marriage but since when had Hermione Granger conformed to propriety?

Charlie's smile faded and a frown creased his forehead. "Hermione, I  - you know what I am - it's why I tried to stop things the other morning - I'm a monster - I'm like Greyback -"

"You're nothing like him!" Hermione declared indignantly. "Charlie, I know things now, many valuable things, that I hadn't known before. Do not put your faith in a cloak and a hood, they will not protect you the way that they should, for one. And - it is not what we  _ are _ but how we  _ choose to be _ that is important. And you choose to be loving, and playful and compassionate and I love you for all those things!"

Charlie smiled, relief flooding his eyes. "Then yes. Yes, I will marry you, Little Red."

* * *

Hermione and Charlie walked back to Hogsmeade with the other villagers, their hands tightly clasped. There was an air of exhaustion but contentment amongst the crowd because, for the first time in two generations, the villagers would go to bed knowing that they were safe from the bloodlust of a hungry werewolf and the wrath and whims of a powerful lord.

And you may be curious, dear reader, why it was that a young boy with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead was the one to finally banish Lord Riddle from Hogwarts Castle. But alas, sadly, we do not have time to tell that tale.

Although maybe one day, someone else will.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Your kudos/comments are cherished and treasured.


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